A refrigerator manufacturer usually offers various priced models. The least expensive models have fixed shelves in the refrigerator cabinet. The intermediate priced models normally have slidable shelves that may be partially withdrawn by a user to enable easier access to articles supported on the rear portion of the slidable shelves. The most expensive models normally have adjustable shelves so that a user may adjust all of the shelves in accordance with the sizes of the articles supported thereon. These adjustable shelves are preferably cantilever half shelves to enable a user to adjust only one half of the shelf although the user may have two half shelves in the same plane.
The variations in the types of shelves to be supported within a cooling compartment, which is defined by a refrigerator cabinet liner, have previously resulted in a different type of shelf support being employed for each type of shelf. That is, the fixed shelf required one type of shelf support to retain it in its fixed position. The slidable shelves required a different type of shelf support to enable the slidable shelf to be pulled partially from the interior of the cooling compartment and retained in that position. The adjustable cantilever half shelves required support of each of the half shelves intermediate the side walls of the liner and one one of the side walls of the liner. This resulted in three different types of shelf supports being utilized with a refrigerator cabinet of a single size. That is, the same size refrigerator cabinet would have each of the three different types of shelves whereby the manufacturer had to provide three different types of shelf supports.
This caused a substantial expense in forming the refrigerator cabinet liner for the three different priced models. That is, three different types of tooling were required to form the three different types of shelf supports when manufacturing each of the various priced models although each had the same size refrigerator cabinet.